Human Resources: Recruitment and Selection
Hiring the right people is expensive to get right and even more expensive to get wrong. For AQA GCSE Business 8132 you need to compare internal and external recruitment, know the key recruitment documents, and explain how businesses select the best candidate.
Internal and external recruitment
Businesses recruit when they grow, when staff leave or when new skills are needed. Internal recruitment fills a vacancy with an existing employee, through promotion or transfer. It is cheap and fast, the candidate already knows the business, and the chance of promotion motivates the whole workforce. The downsides are a smaller pool of candidates, no new ideas from outside, and a fresh vacancy created in the job the person leaves behind.
External recruitment brings in someone new, using job adverts, recruitment websites, agencies or social media. It offers a much larger choice of candidates and imports new skills and ideas, but it costs more, takes longer, and carries greater risk because the new person is unknown. Interviews only reveal so much, and a poor hire can cost a business far more than the recruitment process itself.
Recruitment documents
Two documents define any vacancy. The job description sets out the job itself: the tasks, responsibilities, hours, pay and who the employee reports to. The person specification describes the ideal candidate: the qualifications, skills, experience and personal qualities needed, usually split into essential and desirable.
Candidates respond with an application form or a CV and covering letter. The business then compares each application against the person specification to produce a shortlist of the strongest candidates to interview. Working from clear documents keeps the process fair and consistent, helps the business follow equality law by judging everyone against the same criteria, and saves managers hours by filtering out unsuitable applications early. Weak documents cause weak hires: if the person specification is vague, the shortlist will be too.
Selection methods and attracting candidates
The most common selection method is the interview, face to face or by video, which tests communication skills and lets both sides ask questions. Many businesses add practical tests, such as skills tests, group tasks or presentations, because interviews alone favour confident talkers over capable workers. References check the candidate's history with previous employers.
Attracting strong applicants matters as much as filtering them. Aldi is known for paying well to compete for talent: its graduate area manager programme offers a starting salary of around £50,000, far above the typical graduate wage, which produces thousands of applications for each intake. High pay raises costs, but it widens the pool of candidates, reduces staff turnover and lets the business select from the very best, which Aldi judges cheaper in the long run than constant re-hiring.
Key terms
Practice questions
State two documents used in the recruitment process. [2 marks]
Model answer guidance: One document is the job description. Another is the person specification. A CV or application form is also used.
Explain one advantage to a business of recruiting internally. [3 marks]
Model answer guidance: An internal candidate already knows how the business works, so they need little induction and become effective quickly. Internal recruitment is also cheaper because the business avoids paying for adverts or agencies. In addition, the chance of promotion can motivate other employees to work harder.
Analyse one benefit of using a person specification when selecting candidates. [6 marks]
Model answer guidance: A person specification lists the skills, qualifications and qualities the job genuinely needs, so every application can be judged against the same criteria. This makes shortlisting faster and fairer, reduces the risk of choosing someone on personality rather than ability, and helps the business defend its decisions under equality law. The result is a better match between person and job, which cuts the cost of early leavers and repeat recruitment.
Analyse how offering a high starting salary might affect a business recruiting graduates. [9 marks]
Model answer guidance: A high salary attracts far more applicants, as Aldi finds with its roughly £50,000 graduate area manager scheme, so the business can select from a much stronger field. Better recruits should perform well and stay longer, cutting the cost of turnover and repeat recruitment. However, high pay raises fixed costs from day one and can cause resentment among existing staff earning less, so the business must be confident that the productivity of the recruits justifies the wage bill; if the roles carry heavy responsibility, as Aldi's do, the investment is easier to defend.
A retail business needs a new store manager. Evaluate whether it should promote an existing employee rather than recruit externally. [12 marks]
Model answer guidance: Promoting internally is faster and cheaper, the candidate already understands the company's systems and culture, and visible promotion opportunities motivate the wider team. However, the internal pool is small, the best available person may be outside the business, and an external hire could bring experience from rival retailers along with new ideas the store may badly need. The right choice depends on the situation: if the store is performing well and a strong deputy exists, promotion protects continuity, but if the store is underperforming, fresh external leadership is more likely to change results. On balance, the business should advertise both internally and externally and judge all candidates against the same person specification, because the goal is the best manager, not the cheapest process.
Examiner tips
- Keep job description and person specification separate in your mind: one describes the job, the other describes the person. Mixing them up costs marks.
- Weigh internal against external recruitment using cost, speed, candidate pool and fresh ideas; the best answer depends on the context given.
- Remember that recruitment mistakes are expensive: linking a poor hire to training costs, turnover and lost sales turns description into analysis.
In The Business School simulation your students make these exact decisions in a live market against rival firms — every choice mapped to the specification. Free teacher demo, no installs, students join with a PIN.